How to write spreadsheet formulae

This free activity is part of a series of resources to help KS3 teachers delivering lessons on spreadsheet applications. In this lesson the students will develop and demonstrate their ability to perform calculations using a spreadsheet.

Resources

Interactive assessments

Teachers – reduce your marking and develop your student’s knowledge and motivation with W2L games. There is a relevant activity with the title ‘Simple spreadsheet calculations’. The best way to play these is for students to register for a free W2L account, log in and enter share code ’907795′ to unlock the KS3 Spreadsheets topic. By logging in to play the activities scores will be recorded and attainment rewarded.

Teacher Guidance

Suggested method of delivery:

You should presume that students have no knowledge of performing calculations in a spreadsheet before starting the lesson. They should be introduced to how to do this through a teacher-led demonstration, with students taking a lead in the demonstration wherever possible.

The demonstration at the start should cover how to perform basic calculations using cell references and how to use brackets to ensure that, in more complex calculations, the elements are calculated in the correct order.

Once students are comfortable with how to carry out calculations they should be introduced to the ‘calculations.xls’ spreadsheet. This requires them to perform a range of increasingly complex mathematical calculations. Questions answered correctly are instantly highlighted in green to let students know if they are right but also to give the class teacher a very visual representation of student progress in the room.

As an extension, students should try to create a times tables grid using formulae. They should use autofill to try to complete this with typing as little as possible.

As a plenary students should play the activity with the title ‘Simple spreadsheet calculations’ within the KS3 Spreadsheets topic (share code 907795).

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